Il Giardino Armonico

Johannes Schenck (Amsterdam, 1660-c.1720) enjoyed a considerable reputation as a virtuoso gamba player. He published an impressive collection of works, dating from 1687 onwards. With ten opus numbers to his name, Schenck was the by far most widely published of seventeenth-century Dutch composers. Two of his collections are dedicated to the violin of which Il Giardino armonico armonico consistente in diverse sonate a due violini, viola di gamba e basso continuo Opus 3 (1691) until recently was believed to be lost. But a surviving example was recently located by Pieter Dirksen. It is extraordinary music, perhaps the best of Schenck’s works. Nowhere else in Schenck’s works is the influence of Italian instrumental music so obvious; the clearest influence is the trio sonatas of Arcangelo Corelli but there are also traces of Giovanni Legrenzi’s style as well as allusions to contemporary German and Dutch publications. These twelve sonatas demonstrate an astonishing variety of affects through which the composer displays a noteworthy sensitivity for the different keys, lending each sonata its own particular character.Johannes Schenck (Amsterdam, 1660-c.1720) enjoyed a considerable reputation as a virtuoso gamba player. He published an impressive collection of works, dating from 1687 onwards. With ten opus numbers to his name, Schenck was the by far most widely published of seventeenth-century Dutch composers. Two of his collections are dedicated to the violin of which Il Giardino armonico armonico consistente in diverse sonate a due violini, viola di gamba e basso continuo Opus 3 (1691) until recently was believed to be lost. But a surviving example was recently located by Pieter Dirksen. It is extraordinary music, perhaps the best of Schenck’s works. Nowhere else in Schenck’s works is the influence of Italian instrumental music so obvious; the clearest influence is the trio sonatas of Arcangelo Corelli but there are also traces of Giovanni Legrenzi’s style as well as allusions to contemporary German and Dutch publications. These twelve sonatas demonstrate an astonishing variety of affects through which the composer displays a noteworthy sensitivity for the different keys, lending each sonata its own particular character.